


Out at the Knees

by tuesday



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crush at First Sight, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: It was the sort of assignment meant for a seasoned Master experienced with keeping the necessary detachment, but the only one capable, the Council's (the universe's) sole hope, was one Bastila Shan, newbie Jedi Knight and once Number One Revan Fangirl.





	Out at the Knees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookatallthemoresigive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/gifts).



> My favorite version of Revan is always a bit of a disaster, but also is good at heart. She's the sort of person who stops in a battle to pull the equipment off a corpse and equip it. She's simultaneously charming enough to spark a rebellion against the ruling of the Jedi Council, kind enough to learn a child's Mandalorian, and a big enough dork to go pod racing at every last place she stops that offers it. I love all Revans, but hopefully this note gives you a good idea of what sort of Revan you're getting here.
> 
> Also, um, I fudged the timelines quite a bit. I know Bastila was a Padawan during the Jedi Civil War, but the wiki refused to give up its secrets wrt when she was promoted or what her rank was at the beginning of Knights of the Old Republic, so we're going with "fresh Knight." I'm sorry if that's incorrect.

It was the sort of assignment meant for a seasoned Master experienced with keeping the necessary detachment, but the only one capable, the Council's (the universe's) sole hope, was one Bastila Shan, newbie Jedi Knight and once Number One Revan Fangirl.

Look, it wasn't like it was _unusual_ for the average Padawan to grow unbecomingly attached to a senior Jedi—almost every Master-Padawan pair had some issue with it. It wasn't even unusual for Padawans to express some healthy interest in older, more established role models outside their direct mentors. For Bastila's generation, it was practically a given that at some point, you were going to get a fan-crush on Revan. It was a normal part of the learning and growing process and was absolutely, completely the norm, even if some people—say, Juhani—took it a little far.

Point being, if idolizing Revan a little pre-Trials took anyone out of the running, it would take out everyone under a certain age, plus a fair amount over. But that didn't change the fact that Bastila specifically, especially, should never have qualified. Even years of meditation and attempts to release it into the Force, distance, a war, and a dramatic turn to the Dark Side couldn't kill the seed of a crush that took hold the moment a much younger Bastila watched as Revan took over a group training session and turned it into an impromptu, but in-depth crash course on Soresu, complete with bullying Malak into helping demonstrate key points.

Bastila wouldn't say that she'd fallen in love with Revan to the soundtrack of clashing lightsabers, but she would definitely contend that if she had, she had not been alone. Every other Padawan in that class had been right there with her, hearts in their eyes and hands and lekku aquiver with nervous energy and overwhelming feelings.

_Point being_ , Bastila was not equipped to deal with this. This Revan was not that same Revan, did not even know her own true name, but there was something distinctly Revan-ish to her all the same.

Maybe it was the way Revan swung the vibroblade _just so_ to take out a rakghoul at the knees. Maybe it was the way Revan managed to charm her way past every objective with all the power of an unvocalized Force Suggestion. Probably it was the way Revan looked Bastila up and down—slow, sweeping, thorough—on first meeting again before letting a sharp grin steal over her face at Bastila's barely averted full-body blush. That wink definitely hadn't helped matters any.

This was the sort of assignment meant for a seasoned Master, and Bastila had the sure, sinking feeling that she'd be lucky to maintain the barest detachment at all. Already, Revan's gaze hooked at something behind and below her navel, ready to pull and pull and pull. Already, Revan was digging under her skin and ready to crawl in and reside there a while, make her own little permanent residence for a large piece of herself. Already, Bastila knew she was doomed.

 

* * *

 

"So." Revan slunk into the compartment like she'd slunk back into Bastila's life, sudden and unexpected, and yet with the strange and overwhelming feeling that she'd been there all along, was only just now calling attention to herself. "About that thing."

"'Thing'?" Bastila liked to think, with her raised eyebrow and arch drawl, that she was making a reasonable attempt at creating distance. Revan just smiled that smile she trotted out whenever she'd decided to flirt with any human, alien, droid, or other sentient being who caught her attention (i.e. crossed her path).

Revan sidled up into Bastila's personal space like she was personally colonizing it. "Mm, yeah. Thing." She waved a hand vaguely.

"It's fine," Bastila said stiffly. It would help if she had any idea what Revan was talking about, but it would help even more if Revan took a step or twelve back and gave Bastila space enough to breathe.

"Very fine indeed," Revan practically purred.

"It," Bastila took one of those steps herself, feeling a bit like she was taking a practical and necessary tactical retreat and a lot like she was running for her life, "it's definitely—" She stopped. That—she had to ask. "Is that a gizka in your robes?"

Looking somewhat irritated and slightly guilty, Revan pushed the head of the creature back into her robes. "No." She was not the least bit convincing.

"That is definitely a gizka." Bastila was unable to keep an accusing note from her voice.

"I already found homes for the rest of them. I'm not going back to Manaan because they somehow missed one." Revan tucked the collar of her robes around the creature like if she hid evidence of its existence from everyone else, it would stop existing period.

"We're not that far out—"

"I'm not going back to Manaan." Revan's eyes were a little on the wild side. If not for the smooth, steady presence of her Force signature, Light as it ever was in Bastila's youth, Bastila would wonder if Revan was suddenly feeling the pull of the Dark.

"Were the swoop races really that bad?" It wasn't like Revan had been seriously injured in any of those crashes.

"Not. Going. Back." And with that, Revan swept out as quickly and thoroughly as she'd slunk in, taking the gizka with her.

Bastila still had no idea what Revan had been getting after. Leaning against the side of a console, Bastila wasn't sure she wanted to. A thing with Revan could very easily turn into a Thing, only slightly better than an all-caps THING.

Bastila sighed. She should probably check in with Carth anyway. At the least, it would be a good opportunity to convince him to turn this bucket of bolts around before they ended up with another small herd or sprawling horde of gizka ribbeting around the corridors and sticking to the ceiling, ready to spring onto the heads and tangle in the hair of the unwary the instant their little suctioned grips failed. Once had been more than enough.

 

* * *

 

"So." Revan was a little more charming this second attempt at taking their leave of Manaan. Her smile was more flirtatiously rakish than lopsided and failing. She casually ran a hand through her hair, simultaneously mussing it and making it look infinitely more appealing. Bastila wanted to run her own hands through those messy locks. "About that thing."

Bastila, however, was feeling significantly more murderous. Revan's shoulders fell.

"Uh, right. Absolutely." Revan put her hands up in surrender, though Bastila had yet to say a single word. Bastila was sure Revan could feel the Darkly murderous intent wafting out into the air between them, not to mention whatever their Force bond was throwing out. "I'm just going to—go. That way. Right now."

Revan waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the cargo hold and matched word to deed.

Bastila, in a fit of restraint and a damned fine showing of releasing her feelings into the Force, did not throw anything after her. They'd spent _seven days_ waiting for Revan to finish locking in all the swoop race all-time best records.

 

* * *

 

Bastila's more murderous impulses were not much alleviated by Tatooine and its scorching sands, slimy Czerka representatives, and practically fire-breathing krayt dragons. HK-47's own unending commentary on all the killing they should be doing did not help matters. Meditation barely put a dent in it. Revan dropping trous in the middle of a sand dune to slip on a new set of robes only stoked her rage to heights never before reached. (Rage. Right. That heat was all absolute, 100% unmitigated fury.) It was enough to make any Jedi wonder if this was all being weaponized in an attempt to turn one to the Dark Side. Did Revan actually remember—?

It took a couple attempts to clear her throat, by which point Revan had put away her previous robes and turned to face them, practically beaming. She spread her arms. "Well?"

"Why," and though Bastila was heat her whole body over, her tone was pure frost, "are you changing in the middle of the desert?"

Revan winked. "I tried, but I just couldn't book a better venue."

HK-47 gave a sound Bastila translated to mean, "Look how low hath sunk my former master. Look and despair, because the instant I have someone concrete to blame, I am shooting them in the face until they run out of head."

Revan smiled at HK-47 and said, "Scoff all you like, but maybe someone with a little real blood flow enjoyed the show."

HK-47 said something about blood flowing that Bastila immediately decided to ignore and forget, the best defense mechanism she'd found thus far to spending more than five minutes with the droid.

Bastila gave a little scoff of her own. Carth hadn't even been looking. Bastila had been alone in her indignant, disbelieving (and definitely not anything more heated) stare.

Revan's smile dimmed, then redoubled. "Look, I know it seems strange, but I promise you, I have significantly greater dexterity in these than the rags the Council gave me."

"Let's focus a little less on dexterity," Carth said in a way that indicated he couldn't decide whether he was more judgmental or amused, so had decided to try to express them both, "and a little more on our mission, huh?"

"Reluctant agreement: the whiny meatbag is correct, Master." HK-47 caressed its blaster. "Now is the time to slaughter more hapless, helpless creatures in a selfish and absurd quest for further wealth and glory."

"That's not the point of hunting down all these krayt dragons," Carth protested.

"I mean, maybe just a little bit," Revan said. She held her fingers just a small pinch apart, looked down at her hand, then widened them much further.

This, this right here was why Bastila was accompanying them deep into the desert despite Carth already being present to keep Revan on the straight and narrow. HK-47 was a terrible influence, and one person was not enough. And who knew what trouble _Mission_ would get up to paired with the both of them.

It was the first time Bastila caught Revan changing somewhere completely inappropriate, but it was far from the last.

 

* * *

 

Later—much later—Revan got her personality back. Well, her memories. Her personality never really went away, just got a little sidetracked sometimes, and even that was pretty typical Revan. Later still, Bastila reeling from the highs and lows of a forced Fall and a return to the Light she felt she had little more choice in, they talked.

It was nothing like before—before Bastila Fell, before Revan Fell, back when she was an Initiate yet to find a Master staring starry-eyed at a young Padawan shockingly proficient in Soresu and even more shockingly willing to condescend to talk with a knobby-kneed kid with an obvious crush and halfway to forming her first and only fanclub. Back then, they'd exchanged a bare few words before Malak—younger, Lighter, and screechier, complete with his original jaw—got impatient and dragged Revan away.

They talked not of what came before, but what came after, though part of Bastila preferred they not talk at all, that Revan would let her pretend they could return to the hard-earned equilibrium their push-pull relationship (friendship?)—contingent on Revan's lost memories staying lost and Bastila's own secrets staying unrevealed—managed to eventually achieve. It couldn't hold—Bastila knew it couldn't hold—but she felt so unsteady in and of herself that all she wanted was to pretend that this, between them, could be the new level ground solid under her feet.

Revan didn't ask Bastila's opinion. Revan only had answers, and she was firm in discussing them, though mostly in that infuriatingly roundabout way she sometimes had. They went around in circles, deflecting and glancing off subjects without directly addressing them, until Bastila wasn't sure where they were or how they'd gotten there, only that she knew she'd rather be anywhere else.

"You knew. This whole time you knew." Revan laughed mirthlessly into the palm of one hand. She tugged at her hair with the other.

"I," Bastila paused, unsure how they were back to this. "Yes. We've been over this."

"But _I'm_ not over this." Revan's smile was crooked, fit on her face all wrong. "Force. Even as some fresh-faced Initiate and an upstart Padawan, I could never—I don't know why I thought it would be any different as some mindwiped slob who couldn't remember that she already knew how to use the Force." It was—bitter. Bitter in a way that Bastila hated, that she'd fear if not for the concrete proof she'd been presented time and again in recent days that Revan had returned to the Light Side of the Force. "Then again, that would be why. I didn't remember, or I'd have known how impossible you are to impress."

"I—" What? Bastila felt caught flat-footed all over again.

"I mean, dumb Padawan shit, that's—that's totally normal. Everyone goes through that phase. There's always someone, younger or older or from your own creche—thanks, Malak," she muttered the aside like a thought to herself, "thanks a lot—or, or whatever, but—we all do it. It's pretty much an extra set of Trials all their own." Revan was working herself into something of a rant now. "But this, you—! I _already did this_. I," Revan's voice cracked. She swallowed. She just sounded tired, now. "I already did this. This is like learning I had to Fall all over again."

Bastila pressed her lips together. She humbled herself. She admitted, "I don't understand."

"Yes. Perfect Bastila." Revan shook her head. "I don't know why I'm surprised. You skipped that step along with every awkward bit of puberty, too, I'm sure."

Bastila took a step forward. Without her permission, her hand was raised halfway to Revan's face. "Are you saying—are you telling me that _you_ —?"

The bitterness in Revan's face faded. It was replaced by shock and horror. Her voice came out strangled as she said, "Wait, wait, you mean all that and you still somehow _didn't know_ —?" She buried her face in her hands. "I am the worst. I could've just walked away. No one ever had to know and judge me except Carth and HK, and they were already judgey. I'm not sure Carth even does know, I think his face just came that way."

"Revan." Bastila pulled Revan's hands down to reveal her beautiful, flushed face. "Shut up and kiss me."

"What?" Revan's voice cracked again. It sounded much more gratifying this time. "Really?"

"Really."

Revan continued to stare. With Revan, sometimes if you wanted a thing done, you had to do it yourself. Bastila reached up and pressed their mouths together. There was a pause before Revan kissed back, like her brain was rebooting and she needed the chance to catch up, but then Revan was pressing back, cupping Bastila's cheeks, tangling her fingers in Bastila's hair, sliding her fingers along the length of Bastila's shoulders, touching everywhere like she needed the concrete proof that this was real.

For her part, Bastila kept her hands steady on the rough fabric of Revan's robes, needing the balance, the support. Revan's lips were soft. Her hands were warm. Bastila's knees were weak, but Revan was a solid pillar to lean against.

Eventually, Revan pulled back. "So, uh, just to make sure we're on the same page here—"

Bastila couldn't help the smile, pulled involuntary and fond from deep inside. "I'm pretty sure we are."

"Just to make sure," Revan reiterated. "You know that I've had a crush on you from the very first, right? Both times, really."

Bastila went tiptoed to press their foreheads together. "Yes. Me, too."

They kissed again. Revan withdrew to continue, "And you know that it's—it's more than that now—?"

Bastila just kept smiling, couldn't help herself. She repeated, "Yes. Me, too.

 

* * *

 

It had been the sort of assignment meant for a seasoned Master, one experienced with keeping the necessary detachment, one who wouldn't run off into the sunset chasing a new lover into their next adventure. But it had been given to Bastila, and Bastila wasn't detached—not one bit.

Bastila was head over heels in love.

(She was in good company.)


End file.
